tkostek
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Posts posted by tkostek
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Looks awesome! Can't wait for this one.
What are the "cavalry" riding? Lizards, I guess.
I assume the ogres aren't creatures and don't take a lore council spot.
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netaaron said:
tkostek said:
- points based deployment system
- darker theme
I kind of like the origional lighter theme. I say play the War of the Ring or Arkham Horrer for a darker theme. FF has enough darker stuff.
I like the whimsical tone, but a lot of my "serious gamer" friends felt it was too silly. So while it's not a problem for me directly, it has hurt my ability to find opponents among my gamer friends, and that's an indirect problem.
I don't mind a tone that's more adult, but I find Warhammer stuff to be excessively dark and gothic. WH stuff ends up feeling adolescent to me. I think that stuff is marketed to the teenage feeling of alienation.
In any case, my preferences don't matter all that much. FFG has a pretty consistent vision across their games. They've identified a market niche, and they're focused on it. I'll be very surprised if the whimsy stays in the game. We'll see how well they manage the transition.
Objectives
I really hope we get something along these lines. One of the limitations of most of the C&C games, IMO, is the victory conditions. It's nice to have some flags on the board, and I hope we see more along these lines.
Back in the day, DoW sort of hinted at something along these lines. One of their posts talked about why they put Epic out fairly early. Among other things, Epic facilitates sub-missions or something like that. It's burried in one of the posts from the end of the first year of BL's life. Pretty vague, but pretty enticing.
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I want to see:
- more races
- campaign system along the lines of the one for Battleground: Fantasy Warfare
- completed deployment system, preferably CtA, but other approaches are welcome, IMO
I expect to see;
- points based deployment system
- darker theme
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I'm expecting the following:
- Continued BL support
- Revamped BL tone and atmosphere. The #1 complaint from my friends has always been "cows and ostriches!?", which really boils down to tone and atmosphere. I liked the unique, whimsical tone that DoW brought; it was a new take, and it fit w/ their family friendly ideals. FFG takes a different approach entirely, and I expect to begin seeing that in future expansions.
- Campaign system
- Call to arms will become obsolete and we'll see a points-based system. CtA has it's advantages, but it doesn't fit the FFG game ethic. At least IMO. I see them wanting to do army construction vs creating random scenarios.
- BL "starter set" as a way for new players to enter the game at a decent price point
- Continued BL expansions for a long time.
- Increased complexity level; BL is a fairly simple game, but FFG tends to make heavier, more complex games.
I don't know all the details of the deal to buy BL, but FFG clearly wants to recoup their investment. They want BL to continue generating sales at least for a few years. They got the name brand, and they eliminated a competitor, but clearly they'd like to have a long-term product as well. That's why I expect to see continued product development.
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I've seen a few points based systems posted around.
As has been noted, the obvious answer is deployment decks for the individual races. This is so obvious, that I'm sure they are planned. I expect to see new human-only deployment decks as well. Right now you're forced to mix the races whether you want to or not.
One problem w/ a points based system is that the units aren't obviously better than each other. In a typical points based system, you'd have some units that are really weak, and they would be very cheap. Other units would be really powerful, and they'd be expensive.
In BL, green units don't hit hard, but they are faster. Red hit very hard, but they are slow. Cavalry have lots of bonues, but only get 3 figs. What this means is that the cost spread of the units wouldn't be large.
Doesn't make a points based system impossible. However, if you were building a game with points in mind, then you'd almost certainly design the units differently.
For that matter, it's not too hard to tweak the system. A base green unit has a cost of "1", but only gets 3 figs.
Anyway, enough rambling...
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Maybe it's just me, but I have the feeling the rules changes are getting thick on the ground, and it's leaving me a bit uneasy. Battle savvy, creatures, changes to slingers and bull riders. I have the feeling things are starting to get away from me.
It would be great if we could get a single comprehensive rule set. I'd be willing to buy such an item.
So, how about it FFG? Any plans to print a 2nd edition rule book?
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Tough question.
Call to Arms is often cited as a good expansion because it adds a lot of replay. It allows you to create random battles quickly and easily. On the downside, however, you don't get any extra figures.
Both the HYW and Scottish expansions add a lot of units.
Epic adds a whole new way to play the game, and lots of folks swear by it. I only have limited experience w/ Epic battles, but I found them really cool.
Each of the gob expansions is interesting in its own right. My personal fave unit is the ostrich riders who move 4 and shoot 3. That's a range of 7 hexes!
I guess this isn't helpful, but the good news is that they're all pretty good IMO, although I personally skipped the troll expansion.
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Sounds like Borg has something in the works. Would be a cool addition.
The idea about how to kill a catapult is interesting above, but I was figuring they would follow standard rules in this regard. They have 2 models/figures, and so take 2 hits to kill. I would give them a banner.
I think my ballista might be a bit too powerful, not sure. Ranged attacks are pretty powerful, especially now that we have battle savvy. I'm not quite sure about whether or not they should hit on SoS. Maybe if they hit on SoS it needs to take 3 pts to activate them?
I kinda like the idea above that it takes 5 tokens to reload them, execpt the tokens are sort of fiddly. That's why I just said it takes more than 1 activation point. Seemed simpler and cleaner.
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I've kicked around some ideas for siege units, but I haven't tried anything yet.
My basic idea was something like this
Catapult
Takes 2 points to activate (so cannot be used w/ a scout card, for example); can move or shoot, not both
Can shoot non-line-of-sight; range 2-5 (no melee value); does 2D to target hex; does 1D splash damage to every adjacent hex (including friendly fire); hits on SoS; 2 figures in a unit
Ballista
Takes 2 points to activate; can move or shoot, not both
Requires line of sight; range 2-5; does 4D damage to target hex; hits on SoS; 2 figures in a unit
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For what it's worthy, my view on the thing is that the Bracers of Warding are "broken" but they are easy to fix.
Granted, a warrior can become a powerhouse, but if you make a small tweak to the bracers per my previous post, then the problems go away, IMO.
My feeling is that a warrior should be great at mopping up weak units, but if a champion wades into the center of a huge melee, that champ should figure on probably dying, bracers or no.
By making the little change I suggest, you accomplish exactly this. The champ gets good protection, but is still very kill-able.
As an aside, I'm considering a house rule that no champion can cause more than 2 figs damage in a any single attack no matter how many dice they roll. Then I'd replace the warrior skill assassinate with "battle fury" or some such to let the warrior do up to 3 figs in a single swat. This change, however, is more of a personal taste issue vs the warders just being clearly out of the spirit of the game.
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After reading the above, giving some thought, and doing some analysis, my current tentative conclusion is that the Warding Bracers contain an error. They should be changed as follows:
Current: champion ignores one SoS
Modified: Unit attacking a champion rolls one few dice
For details about my reasoning, see this thread on BGG.
Basically, I'm not bothered by the warrior becoming very powerful and deadly. What I don't like is the warrior becoming virtually invulnerable. It strikes me as breaking the spirit of the game.
YMMV.
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I haven't had the pleasure of playing this expansion yet, so I'm out of thoughts.
It'll be interesting to see if Borg can shed any light on the situation.
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A few other thoughts.
You mention a fireball that took her down once. When she died, she was supposed to lose all artifacts equipped. Did you do that?
There are some other hero skills that could be relevant, such as assassinate, and also some anti-hero artifacts. The thief and wizard abilities to destroy an artifact are relevant, but too uncertain to bank on.
Some potential house rules might include not allowing hack-n-slash and blademaster to stack. Also, it's pretty reasonable not to let the warder stack w/ riding.
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She's clearly a fearsome fighter.
Let's all remember, however, that this is a max-ed out hero, and the idea is that such a being should be powerful. This hero has the max # of skills, max # of artifacts, and the artifacts are also optimized.
A beginning warrior is not nearly so powerful, and a warrior champion is going to get killed several times along the way to becoming a one-woman army.
Again, sticking strictly to the rules, this hero will be forced into retirement pretty soon.
Even so, it does seem that this particular combo may be a bit too powerful...
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There's lots of play in the box w/ the original 10 adventures, so I'd say there's not a priority rush.
FWIW, I now teach people to play the game pretty much by playing the scenarios in order. In fact, I play the first scenario twice with folks, once ignoring all follow-on actions. The second time we play the exact same scenario and sides, but add in the follow-on actions (bold, pursuit).
OTOH, I actually do think that Call to Arms should have been included in the base box because eventually you'll want the extra flexibility.
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Obviously the real answer is to make custom terrain...
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I made my own movement trays from 1/4 inch luan plywood. Using my table saw it was easier to cut this than foam core board.
The Litko stuff sounds like a good idea.
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This is great feedback, and from Mr. Borg no less! I'm looking forward to playing this way.
However, it didn't address my main concern which regards the creatures. The hill giant and giant spider just seem way too fragile under these rules. If everyone is full strength, and my unit attacks a blue/green unit, I'm guaranteed not to die (barring lore). A creature, however, has a very real chance of being vaporized if they melee a blue unit.
Used to be that you could find an unsupported unit(s) and have a decent chance of giving as good as you got. Now I'm not so sure.
Am I missing something? Insight is welcome.
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I haven't gotten to play BL in many months, to say nothing of the Heroes expansion. I'm really looking forward to heroes, especially for campaign play.
In general I think that battle savvy will also be a good thing for the game on balance, though it will change the tactics. Support is not quite as valuable as it was, and the gobs are not as weak as they were.
One concern I have, however, regards battle savvy and creatures. W/o getting into all the probability, each die has around a 5% chance of a critical hit. In the past, it was easy to find unsupported units for a creature to attack, but no longer. If a creature gets into melee, their chance of death is pretty high, IMO.
Now this is currently all just idle speculation on my part.
Are my fears well founded? What's been the actual experience?
Are creatures suddenly much too fragile?
Any insight is welcome.
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Full disclosure: I have only played CtA once.
It's important to realize that CtA is a method to create random scenarios, and not a method to create custom armies. Based on the idea of fast set-up, I don't mind the patterns.
As for the feudal levies, yes, DoW blew that one. It's a band-aid, but it was marketed as a feature. Bad decision.
The three different decks have differences that are too subtle, IMO, but DoW needed to make it work w/ the base game as far as numbers of units. In retrospect, they should have handled this one differently, but it might be tough w/in the confines of the game as we know it.
If we're throwing out a wishlist, I'd like to see a version of CtA that is similar to the Kingdoms expansion for Battlefield: Fantasy Warfare. That includes not only terrain, but also scenarios with various victory conditions.
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FWIW, in the deployment decks w/ Call to Arms, the gobs get 1 extra unit per card. If any gob units are deployed on a card, that card has 5 units. All non-gob cards have 4 units.
Personally, I'm looking forward to new decks for humans, too. What if I don't want to have any mercenaries?
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Really an awesome report.
I am slowly painting my figures and I plan to make terrain similar to yours.
I have cut small trays for each unit from a piece of luan (some kind of wood...). IMO, they make it easier to move a unit, and they keey the unit together a bit better.
Also, I glued a steel washer to each fig, and I put a magnetic sheet on the movement tray. Altogether, it has a pleasant heft.
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In this game you've got dice and two different types of cards. What this means is that the luck comes in many small packages, and therefore it has a good chance to even itself out.
There will be games when you lose because of luck (your bad luck or the other guy's good luck), but I believe that generally the better tactician will win the game.
I don't find the game to have anything that I would consider "strategy", but there are lots of tactical decisions to be made.
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Simply outstanding. Love it.
I am nearly done painting all the humans in the base set, and I've been thinking about what to do next.
I think terrain is the way to go rather than painting the expansions. I was playing with the idea of 3" hexes, and it looks like it would be great. I was planning to take the easy way out and buy a hex map online.
I saw your post on BGG about the construction. What did you use for the trees?
Thanks for the inspiration.
Batlelore Strategy and Tactics Ideas
in Battlelore
Posted
Sevej said:
Hand management. If you have 2 or 3 cards to order your strongest section, wait patiently until you have 3 or 4 (more is better obviously). Play other section cards to arrange units in defensive formation in those sections.In an ideal condition, I'd want at least 3 cards before I begin to launch an attack to keep the momentum.
I'd say the hand management is one of the tricky things to learn.
Also, I often find myself in a strongly reactive mode, and that's not a good place to be.